The outbreak of the pig-borne epidemic in southwest China's Sichuan Province has again renewed the urgency in improving public health security in the country's rural areas.

The epidemic broke out in late June, first in Ziyang and Neijiang, and later spread to ten cities including Jianyang and Chengdu, the provincial capital of Sichuan, the country's No.1 pig production base.

By Tuesday, 205 people in the province had contracted the disease, and 37 had died of it.

Investigations found that all the victims had fallen ill or been killed from infection by a kind of bacteria known as streptococcus suis II.

The patients, mostly poor farmers, who showed symptoms of poisoning such as fever, headache, shock, and even meningitis in serious cases, admitted having had direct contact with ill or dead pigs.

Jia Youling, director general of the Veterinary Bureau of the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture, blamed factors such as high temperature, humidity unhygienic pig shelters, and unsanitary behavior. Various Ziyang locals had slaughtered and consumed sick and dead pigs carrying swine streptococcus suis II.

Liu Xiaobo, a immunologist at Sichuan University, considered the human infection of the swine streptococcus suis II as revenge by pigs on mankind.

"In pursuit of the economic benefits, human beings fully neglect pig's conditions of subsistence and their health, it is quite possible that hogs, which develop diseases under bad conditions, would in turn affect the human beings," said Liu.

He said mankind should pay attention to the health of animals as his own.

Qu Kunning, director of Sichuan provincial bureau of animal husbandry and food, said it was necessary to step up comprehensive management over animal husbandry and food security in order to weed out similar public health crises in rural areas in the future.

Qu stressed that to ensure high-quality pork, efforts should be made to promulgate supportive regulations in tandem with Animal Quarantine Law; standardize quarantine inspection from places of sale and transport to slaughterhouses; intensify supervision over production; market and use veterinary medicine; and improve construction of a fodder quality control system.

Source: Xinhua